Coronado Island

I took the ferry over to Coronado Island yesterday. A round trip ferry ticket costs $6 so I opted for this over a $32 expense at the San Diego Zoo.

I didn’t know quite what I was in for when I walked down to the harbor area (only about a 25 minute walk from the 5th & Market (currently serving as my home base), but I was determined to enjoy it, and take whatever opportunities came along.

I purchased my ticket, boarded, and was immediately stricken by the amount of bicycles on the boat. I began to regret not doing the same thing, but I am planning to do a bike ride in the gaslamp district soon, and didn’t want to spoil the “biking in San Diego” experience.

I took a seat on the top deck, and waited for departure. The view was nice, but not breathetaking. The Coronado Bridge, in all its 11,000 feet of length, stood out against the landscape of the San Diego bay, with little cars and buses running accross creating a scurry of movement just above the rim of the bridge.

Boats moved all around, some coming in to dock, some departing, and some just drifting with the water. With the Midway Ocean Liner looming in the distance, it is a pleasant, but all to industrial view of the San Diego harbor.

A man looking to be in his early fifties sat down next to me as we pulled away from the dock, he said he was a social worker working with terminally ill patients with advanced stages of HIV. He told me about his weekly trip to Coronado Island to ride his bike around the nice neighborhoods. Once again, I regretted not renting and bringing a bicycle of my own.

Our arrival on the island was greeted with a long line of more tourists, waiting to board. I deboarded with the rest, and watched the direction people were going. I saw they were heading towards the touristy shop/restaurant area, I went the other way.

I walked away from the harbor, and tried to get a grasp of what the local experience of Coronado might be. I had heard it was made up of mansions and tourist stores. It certainly looked that way.

I was just about to stop and look inside a bike rental shop for rates, when I saw a noticed a bus, door open, about to depart. It was an MTS bus, just like in San Diego on the “main island”. I looked at the LCD screen on the side of the bus, I didn’t recognize the name, but had nothing else to do, so I flashed my MTS monthly pass (yes!!!) and hopped on.

The bus seemed to be heading down the main road, towards the opposite direction of the harbor. We passed neighborhoods of fancy houses, and playgrounds with well-off-looking kids.

We passed by a building called the “Coronado Library”, I decided to get off the bus and check it out.

I was immediately stricken with a sense of quality as I stepped inside the peacefull library. In one corner of the “entrance hall” as I named it in my head, there was an information/check-in/check-out desk, standard to libraries. In the other corner of the room stood a statue. I didn’t stop to see who the statue was of, as I wanted to get a look at the collection of books.

My suspicions were confirmed as I strolled down the hall, glancing at the labels on the shelves as I passed. They had every genre, and every specialized genre. This was a well-stocked library.

There were desks at the back, with data/power ports, where one could plug in their laptop to work or study.

I stopped at the magazine rack, and took a quick glance at “Backpacker Magazine”. I could have read the whole issue, but I had to remind myself what I was there for: To visit the place.

After stopping for a moment to refill my water bottle, I stepped back outside. Across the street, kids were screaming at a playground. It was not an unpleasant screaming, like on an airplane. It was a screaming of enjoyment and excitement.

I began to wander up the street a bit more. I passed a quaint little pet shop, a restaurant with a life-sized plaster rendition of Elvis set up outside, and a postcard shop. When I came to a store labeled “Bay Books”, I went inside.

This quaint little bookstore was laid out like any other, but it had one unique feature. On many of the shelves, there were reviews hand-written and placed near/under books. These reviews were written by staff members themselves. I thought that was quite a nice/impressive feature. I had never seen anything like it.

After spending an hour reading random segments of “Into the Wild” (I love the book, as well as the film) I decided it was a good idea to start thinking about heading back to the other side of the bridge.

I stepped outside and found the nearest bus stop: It was for stop 901, perfect.

There are only two bus’s along the main strip of coronado Island. There is one which travels up and down the main street, coming from the harbor (the first route I rode on) and there is another which travels between San Diego and Coronado.

I had already decided I was going to skip the second part of the round-trip ferry ride, and was looking forward to riding the bus over the Coronado bridge.

It was a nice, but again not at all breathtaking view while riding accross on the Coronado Bridge. The bridge is quite well-constructed, and seeing it up-close is possibly the most interesting thing about riding accross it or near it.

All in all, the experience in Coronado was a good one. I liked the library best of all.

I wouldn’t call it a must-do in San Diego, though, by any means.

That’s all for now, I’ve got to do some work. I’m getting a little behind in telling about the things I’ve done, and there will be some posts a bit out of order coming up soon (about my Sunday at Ghiridelli’s, and my visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Stay tuned!

If you liked this post, you might like these:

1. Balboa Park…what’s hot and what’s not?
2. Tijuana and more!
3. Earn a little, spend a little

Tagged as: California